Previous studies of strongly magnetic stars with spectral lines resolved into their magnetically split components showed for some stars systematic differences in the mean field modulus values determined from high resolution spectra obtained with different spectrographs at different observatories. It is suspected that they result from modification of the linear polarisation of the spectral lines of the star by the optical train. Since this polarisation varies from star to star, the resulting effect also differs from one star to the next. As high resolution spectra obtained with the Ultraviolet and Visible Echelle Spectrograph (UVES) at the ESO VLT are nowadays used for the measurement of stellar surface magnetic fields, we recently conducted a study of the UVES instrumental polarisation. For this purpose, we carried out a large number of measurements of magnetically split Zeeman components in the spectra of magnetic stars taken with various instrumental settings using different dichroics, the highest resolution image slicer and the depolarizer. Our measurements show no evidence for the presence of a UVES instrumental polarisation.

Date Published: 30 June 2006
PDF: 8 pages
Proc. SPIE 6269, Ground-based and Airborne Instrumentation for Astronomy, 62692R (30 June 2006); doi: 10.1117/12.670711

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 6269:
Ground-based and Airborne Instrumentation for Astronomy
Ian S. McLean; Masanori Iye, Editor(s)